


the devil's triangle

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU of the x-files episode 'triangle', F/M, Fluffy Ending, because mulder and scully took another year to kiss after the love confession and that's crazy, where the monolith takes Jemma to 1939 instead of Maveth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 13:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12749202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: Jemma Simmons is sucked into the monolith and transported onto a ship in the Bermuda Triangle...in 1939. She's desperate to find her way home--assuming she can survive the Nazis who think she's a spy. AU of The X-Files episode "Triangle."





	the devil's triangle

**Author's Note:**

> lots of love to itsavolcano for the beta (OG XF fandom friend!), and to stjarna for the super thorough German translation help! <3

Jemma gasps, suffocating on saltwater, her lungs heavy and burning. She’s waterlogged and dizzy with déjà vu, but instead of Nick Fury lifting her to salvation, rough hands claw at her, shoving her onto a hard, biting surface.

“Fitz,” she chokes, terrified she’s failed, that this time the sea really has stolen him away. She struggles to sit up, but her bones feel like slabs of concrete weighing her down. She can barely even breathe, let alone summon the strength to properly analyze the situation.  

“Oh, she’s alive? Good, let’s get her intel and toss her back overboard.”

“Maybe she’s just out for a nice swim,” another voice replies and a chorus of men laugh and jeer.

“You some Mata Hari, sweetheart? _Sprechen sie Deutsch?_ ” A boot kicks at her ribcage and she groans, attempting to roll away and not quite succeeding.

Dimly, she registers their accents as British. Now that her initial panic at once again nearly drowning has started to subside, she remembers the door to the containment unit opening and the monolith liquefying. Had it somehow transported her off the coast of England? What a relief, honestly; in that case, she just needed to find a phone and everything would be sorted. It was probably the best possible outcome.

Someone grips her shirt and jerks her up by the collar. “How about another dip in the Atlantic?” he sneers.

Jemma kicks her legs against the men feebly, accomplishing nothing. “No, wait—” she pleads, before breaking off into a coughing fit.

“Sorry, love, we don’t take too kindly to spies aboard.”

“I’m not—no, my name is Jemma Simmons, I’m not a spy. I’m uh...I’m not _here_ to spy. I have ID!” She gestures weakly to her pocket and someone pulls out her SHIELD lanyard, tossing it to his companion.

“SHIELD? Never heard of it. Sounds like a spy agency.”

“Right, a comic book one maybe.”

The men lift her again, but she manages to twist her upper body free. “You’ve never heard of SHIELD?” she asks, incredulous. Certainly the whole Hydra takeover had made the news, even if they had been on a ship for the past year or so.

“They train you with that accent in Germany? Think we’ll fall for a pretty bird from home? Or are you a spineless traitor?” The man speaking advances, crushing her arm tightly, and she cries out in shock.

“This has been a terrible misunderstanding,” she attempts. “I’m not from Germany, I’m from Sheffield. I was...something happened and I was transported here.”

There’s a brief pause and then the men burst into loud, dangerous-sounding howls. “The Führer must be desperate, sending you. What kind of spy can’t come up with a believable lie?”

She needs to think quickly, but her brain feels sluggish. Through the darkness and the drizzling rain, she makes out the men wearing sailor's uniforms, but she doesn’t understand their obsession with Germany and refusal to believe her. Even if she _were_ from Germany, would it matter? They’re allies, for heaven’s sake!

The men seem to reach a decision on their own because one grabs her around the waist and tosses her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. “Please,” she begs again, too scared and confused to be humiliated. “Just call Fitz. Call my team, we can sort this out.”

“Shut up,” the man holding her snaps, “before we change our minds.”

He carries her through the corridors, the other men shoving each other and laughing about what they ought to do to her. Her stomach clenches painfully and she wills herself not to cry. _Fitz will find me,_ she thinks. _After all, we’re going for dinner_.

They stop abruptly in front of a door and knock eagerly. An ornate plate engraved with the name “Captain Harburg” gleams in the reflected light from the hallway.

“What’s going on?” the Captain says when he opens the door, blinking at the crowd of sailors and one thoroughly-soaked civilian woman at the threshold.

One of the men leans forward and whispers conspiratorially, although she’s not sure why, since she can hear everything he’s saying. “Found her in the water, Sir. Don’t know nothing about her. Think she’s a German.”

Captain Harburg nods. “Bring her to my room,” he says, gesturing through the door. He stands stoically, radiating an easy professionalism that brings her the tiniest bit of hope. Surely, she can talk to him and explain.

The man carrying Jemma steps into the office and drops her to the floor. She braces her hands on her knees, attempting to stand without throwing up. A sharp slap across her face immediately sends her sprawling.

“Friend or foe?” the Captain demands. Jemma holds a hand to her cheek, blinking rapidly against the tears streaming down her face.

“What?” she replies, weakly.

“To what flag do you pledge allegiance?” the Captain enunciates, as if she’s an idiot.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” she whispers. “I’m...I don’t know how I wound up here. We were running experiments and-and the next thing I knew, I was in the ocean.”

“See?” One of the sailors interjects. “We can’t get a straight answer from her. It’s all rubbish.”

Another man flicks open a knife, running it along his hand menacingly. Jemma takes a deep breath. She survived Hydra. She even survived the ocean, once. She can survive this.

“There's a war on,” the Captain barks. “And in it or no, I don't plan to lose me mind nor me ship to the likes of a little tart like you.”

“What—what war?” Jemma asks. “Surely you don’t mean—” She cuts herself off. Of course they’re not talking about Jiaying; these men hadn’t even known what SHIELD was.

The Captain looks like he’s about to slap her again and she recoils instinctively. “Don’t tell me you’re too busy running _experiments_ to notice when Hitler’s entered Poland? And we've just been boarded by a bunch of his goose-stepping hooligans so I don’t have time for this.”

A horrible rushing sound fills Jemma’s head. It’s not possible, of course. Time travel is absolutely not possible, but how likely is it that everyone else is wrong? Perhaps she hit her head when the monolith swallowed her. She squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself to wake up.

A knock on the door interrupts her interrogation, and another sailor enters the room without waiting for a response.

“Captain,” he says, somewhat frantically. “It’s the Germans, Sir. They’ve taken control of the bridge—said we’re heading for Germany.”

Captain Harburg straightens up, towering over the others. “Not on the watch of Captain Yip Harburg, they’re not.” He gestures at one of the men to his side. “Lock the prisoner up in here.”

“No,” Jemma protests. “The war with Germany’s over. This isn’t possible.”

They all ignore her, shoving her further into the room and locking the door behind them. She’s momentarily frozen in place. Her clothing remains plastered to her skin and her limbs still ache, but she snaps out of it quickly, rushing to a radio sitting on the Captain’s desk. Whatever is happening, she only needs to find a way to contact Fitz, and it will all be fine.

It’s an old two-way radio, practically an antique compared to what she’s accustomed to on the base, but she can’t muster the energy to be surprised or concerned. She’s watched Fitz playing with old gadgets as a form of relaxation, so she quickly spins the dials with learned precision.

“Hello,” she speaks into the radio, trying to keep the tremors from her voice. “My name is Jemma Simmons. I’m on a ship in—” she glances around in distress, trying to find any evidence of where exactly she’s located. “—I’m not sure. The Atlantic? This is a British ship with Germans aboard. I need someone to contact—” She breaks off, nearly screaming in frustration. Of course she can’t ask for Fitz or Coulson or anyone at SHIELD; it’s one of the downsides of working for a supposedly non-existent agency. Jemma turns the dial again, trying to find help on another frequency. On her third attempt, a radio broadcast squeals from the speakers, the staticky voice echoing through the office.

“The British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”

Jemma’s hand drops to her side and she slumps into a nearby chair, stunned. Everything she knows, every atom of her body, is telling her this isn’t possible. She couldn’t be stuck in 1939. But what did they know about the monolith’s properties? It was created by a civilization far more advanced than their own. Still, there was absolutely no evidence for the existence of time travel. Not until now, at least. And worst of all, even if she were willing to accept that she’d somehow wound up in the middle of World War II, she had no idea how she might return home. Her greatest desire at this point is to find out she’s suffering from a particularly horrible concussion. The pounding in her head increases.  And then she hears a key turn in the lock.

“Hallo? Sind Sie da drin? Hallo? Ist da jemand?” Heavy footsteps enter the room. Jemma clamps a hand over her mouth to hide her panicked breathing. Next to her, the radio announcer drones on, announcing the closing of entertainment venues, reassuring civilians that their lives are not in immediate danger.

The soldier passes by the radio and Jemma takes a chance, jumping out at him and fighting with every ounce of training she’s had. The man gets a good punch in before she manages to knock him out with a heavy trophy sitting on the desk.

Jemma doubles over, breathing hard, as the man’s unconscious body falls to the floor. When she finally gets a good look at him, she starts shaking all over again.

“Sitwell?” she whispers. “What the hell is going on?”

She doesn’t know what to do, but her instincts tell her staying by the radio won’t help, so she begins stripping Jasper Sitwell of his clothes. They’re oversized on her, and surely a woman in a Nazi soldier’s uniform will attract some attention, but it has to be better than her current outfit, which certainly doesn’t scream “straight from the 1930s” couture.

Jemma rolls the pants up, tightens the belt, and layers his socks over hers to make the boots fit better. She doesn’t need a mirror to know she looks ridiculous. “About my height but heavier than me,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. Although she’s grateful the officer ended up being Sitwell and not some 1939 version of Ward. Forget uniform size, she never would have been able to overpower him in the first place. Jemma shudders, then exits the office, walking quickly down the hallway. She’s barely made it ten feet when more soldiers appear. She does an about-face, keeping her head low.

They call out something, clearly directed at her, and she knows she can’t lie her way out of this one, so she continues walking rapidly away in the opposite direction. The next time they yell, it sounds decidedly less friendly. She starts running, cursing herself for putting on Sitwell’s boots. It’s like not she makes a very convincing picture in the uniform anyway.

She slips into one side hallway, then another. One more turn, and she stumbles into the ship’s ballroom. In here, it doesn’t seem there’s a war going on at all. The ship’s passengers are dressed in exquisite gowns and tuxedos, dancing to a live orchestra and the sultry crooning of a woman shimmering in the spotlight. Jemma pauses for a moment, once again stunned, and accidentally bumps into a couple dancing to her left.

“Excuse me,” the woman says, accusingly. Jemma turns, an apology already on her lips, when she realizes the brunette woman (who looks _extraordinarily_ like Peggy Carter) is dancing with _Fitz_.

“Oh, thank god,” Jemma exclaims, reaching for him. “Fitz! How did you find me?”

“I suggest you get your Nazi paws off of him,” not-Peggy Carter sneers.

Jemma ignores her, lifting her cap slightly so Fitz can get a better look at her face. “Fitz, it’s me!”

He blinks at her, confused. “Nazis allow women to enlist as soldiers?” he asks, and then glances quickly back to his dancing partner. “I mean, not at all to suggest women aren’t _completely capable_ of being soldiers or-or anything, really. Only, I thought Nazis were—”

Jemma interrupts him before he can continue spiraling. “I’m not a Nazi,” she hisses, offended he hasn’t recognized her. Of everything that has happened since a bloody alien artifact liquefied and transported her into the past, the fact that Fitz apparently doesn’t know her in every universe wrenches her heart rather more than it perhaps should.

“Oh, sure, sweetheart,” not-Peggy says, twirling so Fitz’s back is to Jemma. “You just look like one, right?”

“I had to steal this uniform,” Jemma pleads, trying to maneuver her way into Fitz’s line of sight. If she can just get through to him, nothing else will matter. They’ll be able to figure it out, together.

Before she can explain further, the music stops and the singer points down at her, saying something in rapid German. Soldiers appear out of nowhere, surrounding her and pointing weapons that definitely do not look like ICERs. One fires his gun into the air and screams at her. Jemma looks towards Fitz, silently begging him to help her, but he only stares back at her, mouth agape.

“He said to put your hands up,” not-Peggy informs her breezily.

Jemma timidly raises her hands, and a soldier immediately seizes them.

“See,” she says bitterly. “I told you I wasn’t a Nazi.”

The music starts up again, as if nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. One of the men punches her, and she sees Fitz wince in sympathy before not-Peggy attempts to lead him away to continue their dance.

The soldiers grab her and drag her from the ballroom. She’s getting quite tired of being manhandled and she’s despondent that Fitz didn’t recognize her, didn’t even try to help. Without him, she has no idea how to escape this nightmare she’d found herself in. No, not a nightmare—those she had survived. This is hell.

“Wait until you get to Russia,” she snaps at her captors. “Hope you gentlemen like the cold!” This earns her another punch and a twisted arm. They haul her up to the deck, where rain quickly soaks her again.

“My hair was just drying out,” she murmurs, and preemptively flinches back before she’s hit.

The men toss her aside, and for the second time that day she finds herself landing on hard wood, water filling her mouth. They begin kicking at her and yelling things she doesn’t understand. Her biochemistry courses had been filled with German nomenclature, but apparently none of that is helpful in a situation where one is mistaken by Nazis for an Allied spy.

Suddenly, one of the men lifts her and brings her with them to the helm, where Captain Harburg stands. An officer snaps something at the Captain, of which Jemma only recognizes “Deutschland.”

“I’ll not give up this ship!” the Captain responds, not even sparing a glance towards the men surrounding him. Jemma heaves, wincing as pain flares through her lungs. She hopes she doesn’t have a broken rib—although at this point, that’s the least of her worries.

The Captain refuses to yield despite an increase in shouting. And then everything happens at once—the ship’s first mate screams and a Nazi officer shoots the Captain point-blank. The shooter turns around and Jemma nearly doubles over at the sight of Grant Ward, carefully wiping blood spatter from the front of his suit.

“No,” she moans. “This can’t be happening.”

Ward jerks his head towards her. “Wer ist dieses Fräulein?”

“Ein Spion,” one of the men replies.

Ward nods coldly, turning back towards her. “Wo sind die Waffen versteckt?”

Fear churns Jemma’s stomach, but also white-hot rage. After all that he’s put them through in her actual reality, she can’t believe the cosmos would stick her in an alternate timeline where he’s still a bloody Nazi about to ruin her life.

“Ich spreche kein Deutsch,” she says calmly, refusing to retreat from his gaze. Ward smiles coldly and despite the language and the uniform, his expression is exactly like she remembers.

He shrugs then, completely unaffected by her. “Erschießt sie auch,” he says. She doesn’t need to understand what he’s said because she immediately feels the press of a gun to her temple.

The metal against her skin causes panic to wash over her. She, along with the rest of SHIELD, had just prevented a war with the Inhumans. Bobbi had made it through surgery successfully. The base had settled into some semblance of normal. What felt like moments ago, she had been wondering if she should wear a dress to dinner, and now she is about to be executed on Grant Ward’s orders. Tears prick at her eyes and, absurdly, she thinks of the way Fitz had looked as he danced easily with not-Peggy. She’ll never have the chance, she realizes. Not to dance, not to tell him everything she had buried so deeply within herself during the past year.

“Please,” she begs, “just wait. Why are you shooting me? I haven’t done anything! I don’t understand what you’re asking me!”

The man pushes the gun harder against her temple and Jemma squeezes her eyes shut. If this is it, if this bizarre, horrendous situation is how she dies, then she’s going to die with the image of Fitz asking her to dinner in her mind. Not this hell.

“This isn’t real, Jemma,” she whispers to herself. “This world isn’t real.”

More footsteps approach and through the rain and the chaos, a new voice yells, “Halt!” Jemma opens her eyes and can’t help gaping—it’s _Hunter_ , or someone who looks very much like Hunter. He has a Hydra patch on his uniform and speaks rapidly to Ward, tossing him Jemma’s SHIELD identification. Ward nods in understanding and barks an order. The next thing she knows, she’s being dragged away again.

“Hunter!” she yells, desperately. “Where are they taking me? Hunter!”

 

* * *

 

Fitz runs frantically down the hallway, stumbling and nearly falling before righting himself and pushing through the door. Everything looks exactly as it had on the security monitor—monolith frozen in its usual position, glass door ajar, and Jemma nowhere to be found.

For one second, he thinks his heart has actually stopped beating. He had happened to glance up from his work right as the monolith _liquefied_ and dragged a screaming Jemma away, but until this moment his brain hadn’t processed what he’d seen as reality. He’s still not processing it, not really, but he manages to turn and slam his palm against the alarm.

While sound blares around him and red lights flash in his periphery, he takes a deep breath. Soon, Coulson will arrive and demand answers, and he needs to be able to think clearly. Jemma needs him, wherever she is, and she can’t afford for him to panic and lose focus.

++

Fitz gestures impatiently at the screen behind him.

“So I _think_ —well, I’m most likely dead on, this monolith is a portal. It can warp space-time. At the exact moment it took Simmons, one of SHIELD’s satellites picked up an abnormal energy reading at these coordinates.” Fitz keys in a command on his laptop, and longitude and latitude lines crisscross the globe, a cursor eventually zooming in to a spot in the Atlantic Ocean, east of the Bahamas and north of the Dominican Republic.

“Hang on,” Hunter interrupts. “That’s right in the middle of the Devil’s Triangle.”

Fitz turns to stare at his friend, but finds himself utterly speechless.

“Uh, the what now?” Skye asks.

Hunter looks around expectantly but only finds blank expressions. “Come on, guys, the Devil’s Triangle? The Bermuda Triangle? Where planes and ships mysteriously disappear?”

Fitz huffs. “Of course I know what it _is_. But there’s never been any evidence to suggest actual paranormal phenomena occurring in this region.”

“So Simmons getting sucked into a rock and transported right to the middle of the Bermuda Triangle isn’t enough evidence for you?”

Fitz presses his thumb into his left hand, trying to keep his temper under control. “We don’t know _where_ she is, just that the only unusual activity coinciding with her disappearance happened here. And even then, there’s nothing to suggest—” He cuts himself off with a sigh. “Nevermind, it’s not important. Sir,” he turns to Coulson, “I’d like to request a Quinjet to search the area.”

Coulson leans against the desk. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he murmurs, but he straightens up quickly, slipping back into director mode. “Okay,” he says decisively. “I’ll approve the Quinjet. But Fitz, you have no idea what you’re getting into or expecting to find, do you?”

Fitz shakes his head. He’d run every test he could think of, but there simply wasn’t enough data, and no one seemed to have any real information on the monolith. Not even Bobbi, when he’d begged her at her hospital bedside, could provide much knowledge. And Skye just kept repeating that the Inhumans were taught to fear it as a weapon.

Coulson taps the fingers of his right hand against his leg. The way he’s carrying his body shows he’s far from adjusted to the loss of his arm, and in this light the lines of his face look deeper, carved by time and loss. He pauses again and then orders Fitz to take Skye and Mack with him and report in as soon as possible.

“Hunter can stay and coordinate from here if you need additional support,” he adds.

Fitz turns to rush out the door, but Coulson calls him back. “Be careful,” he says. His voice is stern, but his eyes are soft and worried.

Fitz nods and lets everything he’s too scared to say remain unspoken. He rushes out to change into his tac gear, still strewn about the floor in his room after their last mission. He feels a pang when he sees the clothes. He had shed them quickly, pumped up on adrenaline from a successful mission and, if he’s honest with himself, from Jemma’s three words playing on a continual loop in his mind. Now, when he puts the uniform on, it feels constrictive—a vice around his body, reminding him that they will never be afforded a moment of peace. Carefully selecting a dress shirt for a dinner date is not the life the cosmos has seen fit to give them.

He huffs out a breath, impatient with himself. None of that matters now. The only important thing is finding Jemma and bringing her home. As long as she’s safe, he would forego thousands of fancy dinners. She just needs to be safe. She _will_ be; nothing else is an option.     

They’re barely in the air an hour when Hunter calls to inform them that a ship has miraculously appeared out of nowhere, at the exact coordinates where SHIELD’s satellite had marked the initial anomaly.  

“That’s not possible,” Mack argues.

Hunter starts to say something, but Mack interrupts. “And I don’t want to hear about the Bermuda Triangle. I mean it, Hunter.”

Fitz says nothing during this exchange. It doesn’t change anything. They’re still heading to the same area. Only now, he knows they’re looking for a ship.

Skye glances at him and then reaches out, running a hand along his arm until she can grasp his fingers with her own. He squeezes back gently, but doesn’t make eye contact. He’s afraid if he does, he will break apart completely.

His brain is spinning with what he’s done wrong. Was the case unlatched when he leaned against it? Why did he shut the door when he left? Why didn’t he just offer to take her to dinner right then? _I’m so sorry, Jemma_ , he thinks. _I’m going to find you._

He extricates his hand from Skye’s and slouches forward, resting his head in his palms. “I have to find her,” he whispers. Skye leans her head against his shoulder.

“We will,” she promises, and for a moment he allows her quiet assurance to ground him.

 

* * *

 

Jemma is hauled into the hold of the ship along with the British sailors who’d initially captured her. Apparently, seeing her relegated to prisoner is enough to convince them she’s not actually a Nazi spy, and they’re now positively chummy towards her.

“I heard your weird ID saved you,” one sailor offers. “It’s American?”

Someone else laughs. “They don’t want any bloody Yanks in the war.”

Jemma sighs. “Yes, well, just wait until Pearl Harbor.” Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders if anything she says is having an effect on the future. But then again, didn’t Fitz always say nothing they did could change the future? That time was merely how they perceived the fourth dimension? She refuses to believe anything is entirely inevitable, but if she really is in the past, didn’t that mean this had already happened?

“You know something we don’t?” the guy next to her asks, and she manages to contain her laughter as the absurdity of the situation washes over her.

“Hitler marches through Europe, the Italians seize their opportunity, and the Japanese attack Hawaii. It’s a long, horrible story, but fortunately it has a happy ending.” Jemma can’t tell whether any of them honestly believe her, or if she’s providing some much-needed amusement. At this point, she really doesn’t care. Their Nazi escort opens a door leading to the engine room and orders them all inside.

“What was all that shouting about up there?” she asks, not actually expecting an answer. To her surprise, one of the sailors shrugs.

“They got it in mind we left America carrying arms to England.”

“Did we?”

“Listen, she's drawing 16 feet at 81,000 tons. We're making 21 knots at full power. If we got munitions aboard this ship, they don't weigh but a few stone.”

Jemma frowns. “But the Captain knew something. He wouldn't give up the wheel.”

“The Nazis boarded us after they intercepted a radio communication... Some kind of code word they keep asking about—Thor's Hammer. You know what that is, love?”

Jemma can’t help it; she gasps. Obviously, the whole world knew Thor’s _actual hammer_ had been discovered in a New Mexico desert, but she had spent so much time studying Peggy Carter’s files and she hadn’t even made the connection—Peggy was aboard this ship to protect a scientist. But the scientist can’t have been Fitz; none of this was adding up.

“It’s not a weapon,” she whispers. “It’s a man who will help build a weapon—a bomb that’ll win the war for whichever side has it.”

“And he’s here?”

Jemma places a hand against her throbbing temple. This didn’t make sense. “I...maybe. In the ballroom…”

The sailor grins toothily, crossing in front of her to bang on the locked door. When it opens, he drawls out, “Er nennt sich Thors Hammer. Er will eine Bombe bauen.”

The door slams shut behind the sailor, and one of the crew shoves her against the wall. “What is _wrong_ with you? Don’t you know there are spies everywhere?”

A cacophony descends upon the engine room as men hurl insults at her, in between arguing over where to take this ship—towards England, back to America, anywhere but Germany. Jemma is at an absolute loss—she doesn’t know why she’s here or how to leave.

“Is there—is there a rock on board? A monolith?” she asks feebly, above the din of the men’s arguing.

“Like we’d tell you anything. Probably just run to your new Nazi buddies.” Jemma catches the way a man from the engine crew warily eyes what looks to be a small supply closet, but before she can say anything one of the German soldiers re-enters the engine room. “Du! SHIELD! Du kommst mit uns.” This time, Jemma follows willingly. It might be her last chance to reach Fitz, to try and warn him.

She’s dragged back into the ballroom, where the frightened guests are lined up in the middle of the room. Now there is no gaiety. Ward stands facing the crowd, his hands clasped in front of his body, his face the perfect picture of expressionless calm.

Someone jerks her forward, depositing her next to Ward. He doesn’t glance at her, instead searching the crowd.

“There is a scientist on board who can make a bomb,” Ward says, his English heavily accented but crisp and precise. “Who is this man?”

“I don’t know,” Jemma replies, willing her voice not to waver.

Ward appears completely uninterested. He motions to the soldier next to him. The man lifts his weapon, pointing it into the crowd.

“You will answer the question or we will begin killing passengers. Which one is the scientist?”

Jemma freezes, gazing into a sea of terrified faces. The truth is, she doesn’t know who the scientist is. She has a suspicion, although it doesn’t make any logical sense... She can’t be responsible for the death of innocent civilians, but she also can’t be responsible for potentially arming the Nazi regime with the most destructive weapon of the age. And she can’t...she can’t allow Fitz to be captured. Even if he’s not really Fitz. Even if he doesn’t know who she is.

“I don’t know,” she repeats finally. For a moment no one moves and her words hang in the air. Then, swiftly, the soldier standing next to Ward plucks an older man from the first row of passengers and shoots him through the temple, his body collapsing instantly.

Jemma feels like her insides have been hollowed out. Distantly, she hears frightened sobbing.

“How many lives are you willing to sacrifice?” Ward asks. He’s radiating tranquility, and she seethes, concentrating hard to keep her face blank.

“None,” she says simply.

“Then you have the answer.”

Jemma blinks, turning away from the directness of his gaze and hating herself for it. Another shot, another thud of dead weight hitting the floor.

“Stop!” a woman yells. Peggy has forced her way to the front of the crowd, her eyes blazing. “This woman has no answers.” She walks defiantly up to Ward, craning her neck to meet his stare. “You’re killing innocent people to learn that she knows nothing!”

“Shut up,” Ward snaps. “Shut up and move away.”

“Listen to me, you king idiot—”

Ward flicks his wrist, and the man next to him aims his gun at Peggy. Jemma panics. If this really is Peggy Carter—and it couldn’t be, but if it _is_ —then she can’t die, not like this. Then the war might actually be lost, and Hydra would win.

She pushes Ward aside and steps directly in front of Peggy. “I’ll answer the question,” she insists. She feels the eyes of the whole room on her, and then she does the only thing she can think of: she points at the first man killed, his blood inches from her feet.

“That man is the scientist.”

As soon as she utters the words, she knows they haven’t worked. Peggy steps beside Jemma and for a moment Jemma allows herself to draw strength from the woman standing next to her. And then Ward points his own gun directly at Peggy.

 

* * *

 

“Whoa, Fitz, Hunter wasn’t lying,” Skye calls from the cockpit of the Quinjet.

Fitz looks up from his tablet where he’s been running additional, useless calculations for the past hour. “What?”

“The storm cleared and this ship just appeared.”

Fitz leans over Skye, peering out the window. The ship had shown up on Hunter’s satellite images, but not on any of their monitoring systems, and yet there it was, rising and falling gracefully with the waves. “It’s the Queen Anne,” he breathes, momentarily stunned.

“That ship Hunter said went missing in the Bermuda Triangle in the 1930s?” Mack asks. “Don’t tell me you two believe his crap.”

“Seeing is believing?” Skye offers.

Fitz shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he replies. “But the ship has _power._ ”

“Maybe Jemma’s on board,” Skye says.

Fitz rubs a hand over his face. “Let’s hope so.”

 

* * *

 

“You’re lying,” Ward sneers.

“She’s telling the truth,” Peggy says, exuding an air of practiced nonchalance.

Ward finally loses his patience, slapping Peggy across the face. She doesn’t move, simply staring at him with a calculated indifference.

“Who is the scientist?” he snaps.

Jemma opens her mouth, but before she can even think to formulate a response, a familiar voice cuts through the noise.

“Please, don’t shoot! I’m the scientist.” Fitz appears out of the mass of passengers, hair disheveled and tears glistening on his cheeks. Jemma’s heart clenches painfully at the sight. She hadn’t asked for any of this; all she’d wanted was a nice, romantic dinner with her best friend in the world. All she’d wanted was a possibility.

She feels stuck in molasses. Every instinct is propelling her towards him, but she’s afraid any sudden movement will only hasten their deaths.

Peggy intervenes first. “This man’s a liar. I’m the scientist.”

Fitz shakes his head, stepping up until he’s right next to Jemma. She reaches for him instinctively, but he doesn’t meet her halfway.

“Please,” Fitz says, speaking to Peggy. “Tell them the truth before anyone else has to die.”

“I don’t know this man,” Peggy insists, and Fitz turns in frustration to Ward.

“Don’t listen to her. She’s traveling with me to protect me. She works for the SSR.”

Ward jerks his head to the side and two soldiers appear on either side of Fitz, grabbing his arms and dragging him away. Two more follow them out, although Fitz isn't putting up a fight.

“Fitz!” Jemma yells. He looks over his shoulder at her. Their eyes meet and hold for a second, and she can tell that she still means nothing to him. Something cracks deep within her chest and she lunges for Ward.

“Let him go!” she screams, nearly incoherent with fear and rage. “I’m the scientist!” Someone strong grabs her, pushing her onto her knees. Next to her, Peggy is struggling against an officer. Jemma realizes the room has gone eerily quiet.

“The engines shut down!” she yells at Peggy, and a moment later the ship’s crew and sailors rush into the ballroom, grabbing anything that could possibly be a weapon. Chaos erupts and in the darkness Jemma can’t see who’s fighting whom.

A slim but strong hand clasps Jemma’s wrist, tugging her onto the floor, where she tries to avoid the men fighting above her.

“We have to find Fitz,” Peggy hisses in her ear, and together they manage to crawl away from the brawling. As soon as they’ve retreated enough, Peggy hauls Jemma up, and they race out of the ballroom and into the hallway.

 

* * *

 

Fitz, Skye, and Mack board the Queen Anne. Despite the flickering lights, the ship appears deserted. With every second that passes, Fitz finds it harder and harder to keep calm.

“Jemma!” he yells, swinging his flashlight about wildly. He can hear his frantic shouts echoed down the hallways by Skye and Mack.

The dust in the corridors hasn’t been disturbed. Aside from his team, he can’t hear anything else. He refuses to acknowledge this as a dead-end and continues searching deep into the bowels of the ship. He can no longer hear Skye and Mack and when he attempts to re-set his comms he’s greeted with a burst of static. Still, he moves forward, navigating through cobwebs and relics of a time long past.

He winds up in the engine room and notices a door at the back—a door that, if his cursory evaluation is correct, shouldn’t be there. Fitz drops his flashlight, pulling at the door with all his strength. He thinks he’s not making any progress until it swings open unexpectedly. He loses his balance and stumbles, and when he straightens up he nearly falls over again.

The room is small, hardly more than a closet and barely large enough for the glass pod it contains. Inside it stands a monolith—almost identical to the one they’d left at the Playground, but not quite.

Fitz gapes, breathing heavily. “What the _hell_?”

 

* * *

 

Jemma and Peggy quickly catch up with Fitz and his four Nazi guards, who are leading him back towards the engine room. Peggy gives Jemma a look and then bounds up, knocking the first guard out effortlessly and taking his weapon. She doesn’t even use it, instead tossing it to Jemma. “Take him and go!” she yells.

Fitz looks between the two women and the remaining soldiers in shock before Jemma grasps his hand in hers and runs towards the engine room. Fitz stumbles along behind her, throwing worried glances over his shoulder at Peggy.

They careen down the hallway, so close to safety she can almost taste it, when a sharp command barked in German at their backs makes them stop like they’ve slammed into a wall. They both raise their hands above their heads, and Fitz looks at her, terrified.

“What do we do?” he whispers.

Before she can open her mouth to reply, a shot rings out, close enough to hurt her ears. Her heart thuds painfully when she realizes she’s still alive, which must mean—but no, Fitz is next to her, arms quivering above his head. They turn around and see the body of a Nazi officer sprawled on the floor, blood spreading around him, while the man who shot him gives them a somewhat-sincere salute.

“God bless the Yanks,” Hunter says. “Now get your arses out of here.”

“I’m not Amer—” Fitz starts, but Jemma slides her fingers through his and pulls him away.

“Not important,” she hisses. She shoves him through the door to the engine room and slams it shut behind them. She’s panting from exertion and her arms are shaking, although she doesn’t know whether it’s from adrenaline or shock or her numerous injuries catching up to her.

Fitz stares at her, wide eyed, but says nothing.

Inhaling deeply, Jemma leans against the door and looks up at him. “Fitz,” she says, “I know this seems crazy, but you have to listen to me. You’re the only one who can save this ship.”

He shakes his head. “Wh-what— _who are you_?”

“My name is Jemma Simmons,” she says. “And where... _when_ I come from, we’re best friends and—” She sighs. “There’s no time to explain. I just need you to trust me. You have to turn this ship around, back the way it came. It’s caught in something called the devil’s triangle—a rift in space. And I know we don’t believe in that sort of thing and part of me hopes in the future you won’t remember I’m even saying this, but it’s the only way to fix this.”

Fitz frowns, considering. “And if I don’t?”

Jemma stares at him, his clear blue eyes, the way his body is trembling from what he’s just been through. He’s not trained for combat, and he nearly sacrificed himself to prevent the loss of more innocent lives. She’s spouting utter nonsense, and yet he’s not dismissing her outright. In any reality, she realizes, she loves him. Even if he doesn’t love her back.

“In all likelihood, I won’t exist,” she offers.

“Oh…”

“And neither will you.”

“Okay…”

Her breath hitches. She knows he doesn’t believe her. She also knows he has to, or she’ll never see him again.

She licks her lips and his eyes flicker down. “So, in case we never meet again—” Jemma reaches up, pulling his face towards hers and brushing her lips against his. She can taste the saltwater from his tears and somehow, he smells exactly like her Fitz. She curls her fingers into his hair, scratching at his scalp, suddenly desperate to deepen the kiss.

Fitz angles his head to allow her better access and his hand settles at her waist, gripping tightly. The heat of his fingers burns through her shirt.

Just when she thinks she could be content to stay here, Fitz gasps and pushes her away. His eyes are almost accusatory, as if she’d tricked him but he couldn’t figure out how.

“What the _hell_?” he breathes.

Jemma laughs. “That’s honestly a better reaction than I’d expected.” She turns then, because if she has to look at him anymore she’ll never be able to let him go.

“Be careful, Fitz,” she whispers, and then she runs to the doorway she’d noticed earlier.

“Hey!” Fitz calls after her, but she’s already opened the door, already disengaged the safety latch. This time, she sees the monolith change as if it’s occurring in slow motion. Fitz screams her name and the horror and anguish of it breaks her heart. He doesn’t know her, not really, but she still doesn’t want the last thing she hears to be his devastated cries at being left behind in this life as well.

It only lasts a second though, and then she’s devoured all over again.

 

* * *

 

If anyone were here to see, he wouldn’t be allowed near this case, but his comms are still malfunctioning and there’s no one to stop him. Something tells him this is the right move—but whether that’s his actual scientific opinion or a darker part of himself willing to go anywhere Jemma might have gone, he can’t say. He’s just unlatched the case when the monolith liquefies, slamming the door open and knocking him flat on his back.

When he opens his eyes, Jemma is sprawled on top of him, lying in a pool of ocean water, the monolith once again inert in its container.

“Jemma? Oh God, Jemma, are you okay?” Fitz pulls her until she’s sitting up, leaning against his side, but she doesn’t move. He squeezes his fingers to her neck and doesn’t find a pulse, but his heart is beating too fast; he can’t hear anything over the rushing in his ears.

He manages to lift her and stumbles out of the engine room. Tears blur his vision. _Oh god_ , he thinks, _don’t let me be too late_.

Skye nearly barrels into him.

“ _Where_ have you—You _found_ her? What—”

“Later,” Fitz snaps. “We need to get help.”

Skye snakes an arm around Jemma’s waist, taking on some of the weight. They run as fast as they can while still being gentle with Jemma. When they reach an area of the ship where their comms cackle back to life, Skye yells for Mack to get the quinjet ready with the first-aid kit and to ensure a medical team would be standing by at HQ.

A doctor back at the base walks them through temporary first-aid. Jemma’s vitals mostly stabilize, but she remains unresponsive.

Fitz feels a hand against his back and looks up at Skye. He can barely make out her concerned features with the tears blurring his vision.

“You need to breathe,” she says.

Fitz only grips Jemma’s arm tighter. Her skin looks translucent and is ice cold beneath the heat of his fingers. He has no idea what she’s been through and no idea if she’s even really made it back. He brings her hand up to his face, not even caring that Skye will see.

He presses a gentle kiss into her palm. “Come back to me,” he pleads.

++

Jemma wakes fitfully, fighting against the too-familiar sensation of drowning. Her mouth feels like she’s been chewing cotton and she has a headache to rival her worst hangover.

A blurry face hovers at her bedside, and she tries anxiously to sit up. “Where am I?” she groans.

“Shh,” Fitz says, gently pushing her down. “You’re in med bay, back at the Playground.”

“You were there.”

“What?”

“You were there, Fitz. In 1939. With Peggy Carter. And...and Hunter.”

“I want whatever she’s on,” Hunter snorts.

“You saved the world, Fitz. You’re the hero.”

Fitz laughs. “Yeah,” he says indulgently. “I am.”

Jemma frowns. “You don’t believe me.”

Even in her disoriented state, she sees the way Fitz’s eyes soften at the corners when he gazes at her. Has this always been how he looked at her, and she never noticed? “I’ve always believed you,” he insists. “But you need to rest—we can debrief later. Just sleep and I’ll come back when you wake up.”

She’s desperate to make him stay. She’d nearly lost him—would have lost him, if his 1939 counterpart hadn’t believed her. She reaches for his hand, and Fitz seems to sense her growing agitation, because he angles his head towards the door and Hunter, Skye, and Mack quickly step out into the hallway.

Fitz soothes gentle circles along the inside of her wrist, and despite her attempts to fight it, she can feel herself being lulled to sleep.

“You’re safe now,” he whispers. He doesn’t know, doesn’t realize that suddenly her physical safety is entirely inconsequential.

“I love you,” she says, firmly, dizzy with the relief of finally telling him. The taut nerves in her body loosen; after everything, she has not lost her chance.

Fitz drops her hand from his in shock and stares, his brow furrowed. Words claw at her throat, but she’s used all her strength and the medicine is pulling her back under.

He shakes his head, as if clearing away fog, and smiles at her, soft and reassuring. “Just sleep, Jemma,” he says, and she does.

++

Fitz hardly leaves her bedside, and they’ve spent hours talking over her experience. It’s all utterly unbelievable, and she's still trying to wrap her head around the fact that it actually happened.

“You know, I saw in one of those old SSR files that Peggy Carter _was_ on the Queen Anne, and there was a scientist on board. But I couldn’t find any record of it being in the Bermuda Triangle...and obviously _I_ wasn’t the scientist. Unless we believe in reincarnation.” Fitz pauses, scratching at his chin thoughtfully. “Um, do we believe in reincarnation?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure what I believe anymore,” she replies, swirling her spoon through the remains of her ice cream. Fitz’s eyes flicker down, and she grins, handing him the bowl.

“I mean, if I hadn’t experienced it myself…” she shrugs and looks up, suddenly mesmerized by the way he licks the ice cream from the spoon. She blushes and glances away before he can catch her staring.

“Well, the monolith here has been completely inert since we returned. And the Queen Anne was destroyed in the storm after we took off. None of our equipment has picked up any remains of that monolith. Who knows if Mack will ever let us get near ours again, anyway.” Fitz frowns, scraping at the dregs of her ice cream. “D’you think they have more of this? It’s better than the stuff in the kitchen, don’t you think?”

Jemma grins and he sets the bowl down, trading it for his tablet. "I wonder if my mum would believe this," he muses. "Can you imagine how proud she'd be—her only son, single-handedly saving the world from Nazis?"

She scoffs. "I don't think I would say you  _single-handedly_ saved the world."

Fitz glares at her in mock outrage. "Just let me have this, Jemma. Let me and my poor, kindhearted Jewish mother with no grandchildren have this."

Jemma laughs, utterly charmed by him. She suspects she’s always felt this way, but after her unexpected time travel and multiple near-death experiences, she no longer wants to hide it. Still, he hasn’t responded to what she said when she first came to, and as time goes on she worries more and more that he no longer feels the same way. He _had_ asked her to dinner, a _date_ , only days ago. But then again, her time in 1939 had spanned mere hours and yet she felt like she’d had a whole other life. Maybe, she worries, Fitz had experienced the same but reached the opposite conclusions.

They lapse into silence. Fitz scans through new data on his tablet while she grows increasingly anxious. Finally, she can’t take it anymore. She has to know—even if it’s not the outcome she wants.

“You never responded,” she says. “To uh, what I said. You know...when I first woke up.”

Fitz’s hand slips, and he just manages to catch the tablet before it falls to the floor. He sets it on the stand next to her hospital bed and wipes his palm against his trousers. He doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

“Jemma,” he sighs. “When you said that...I mean, you were tired and dehydrated and heavily medicated...”

He’s giving her an out, and she doesn’t know if it’s to protect her or to protect his own heart. Maybe he’s afraid for them both. After all, she had left him with  _maybe there is_ and returned confessing her love.

“I was as clear-headed then as I’ve ever been,” she says, gently but unwavering. “When I said that.”

He looks at her then, his eyes shimmering in the lamplight. She can hear his ragged breathing, but he doesn’t say anything.

Jemma closes her eyes and finds a memory from so long ago, pictures holding it to her chest like a favorite jumper. “I imagined our dinner sometimes when I was...wherever I was. I wondered about us a lot actually.” She risks a glance at him—his eyes are wide, mesmerized by her words.

“There’s a small cottage in Perthshire we drove by once when I was a girl, some family holiday. And I don’t know why, but I found it so lovely. I still think about it. A place where you and I could have—” She falters, rubbing her fingers against her temple.

“You thought about settling down in Perthshire?” he asks. She smiles, shrugging slightly.

“That’s in Scotland,” he smirks, and she rolls her eyes.

“I know where it is, Fitz.” She looks directly at him, surprised to see a tear trailing down his cheek. She aches to reach for him.

He remains silent, but his face is so open and vulnerable. Their entire history is written across his features and she reads it like a favorite poem. She has memorized him long ago, and she’s still finding more beauty in every line.

“What do you think we should do about it?” she whispers.

He leans forward and twines his fingers through her own. She knows the callouses of his fingers intimately, from all the times he’s brushed a strand of hair back from her face, held her as she cried, handed her something in the lab and lingered for a second too long. But now, it’s not enough.

“For now, you should get some rest. And then I’ll take you out for dinner.”

Jemma tugs his hand and he tips towards her, his face inches from her own. “Actually,” she says, biting her bottom lip and smiling at the way he can’t stop himself from looking down, exactly like he had in 1939. “I think I’m all rested up.”

When she kisses him, he hesitates in the same way she remembers and she marvels at how a first kiss can feel so familiar. This time, though, he brings a hand to the nape of her neck and draws her closer in a motion so gentle it’s like the sun warming her skin after the longest winter.

She pulls at his shirt until he crawls onto the bed and she kisses his chest, right over the pattering of his heart.

“I love you,” she says, because now it’s easy. Their relationship has never been a straight line. She loved him before she understood and she kissed him before he knew her and maybe he’s always been part of her. Somehow, telling him this truth before they’ve gone on a single date seems only natural.

Fitz tightens his arms around her and rests his chin against the top of her head. “I love you, too,” he sighs. She can feel every tension and worry and fear draining out of him until his body is soft, enveloping hers.

The strange thing is, even though they’ve never done this before, not here in this lifetime, it's the warmth of his lips against hers that feels most like home.


End file.
